WWE News: Raw gets all-time low ratings thanks to Presidential debate

Will Raw recuperate from this week’s all-time low?

It was expected well in advance that Raw would be going up against both the NFL and the Presidential debate, and as a result, the ratings would possibly hit an all-time low. And that is exactly what happened.

The show started off with a United States Championship rematch between Roman Reigns and Rusev that ended up in a double count out. What was surprising about the opening was that it was the first time in ages that Raw started off with a match and not a promo. There was another title defense between The New Day and The Club which saw The New Day retain. Perhaps WWE put the two title matches to put some butts in seats, but the two matches finished up by the first hour.

The Raw was the follow-up of the Clash Of Champions Pay-Per-View and drew 2.478 million viewers. This is down 7.7% from last week's 2.684 million viewers and the lowest audience for the show in its history. This is including holidays.

The breakdown of the 3 hours were as follows:8 p.m. – 2.85 million viewers9 p.m. – 2.38 million viewers10 p.m. – 2.20 million viewers

There will be two Championships on the line next week as well – The Raw Women’s Championship, where Charlotte defends against Sasha Banks, and The WWE Cruiserweight Championship, where TJ Perkins defends against Brian Kendrick again. Next week’s ratings are expected to bounce back from this week.

It must be noted that the Presidential debate was they key factor in bringing down the ratings to an all-time low. The debate garnered over 84 million viewers over the 13 different channels it was being broadcasted live on, being the most watched Presidential debate in the history of the United States (the previous bar was 80 million in 1980).

Even NFL, which garnered 12 million viewers last week, dropped down to 8 million this week. That is just the drawing power of the Presidential debate, especially one that is between two controversial figures.

It is expected that Smackdown Live will be beating Raw for the first time since the draft in the ratings, especially given that it had a World Championship main event between Dean Ambrose and AJ Styles. However, the show itself was not considered spectacular overall, so we will have to wait until tomorrow to see if the blue brand won in the ratings this week.

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